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[UPDATED on Thursday, Feb. 10 at 12:05pm: The Tripartite Alliance for Fair and Progressive Employment Practices (TAFEP) has responded to Mothership's queries and said that they will investigate ETHOZ Group and require the company to give a full account of its practices.]
When you apply for a job, the assumption — or, at least, hope — is that you will be judged based on your past experience, your achievements, and the quality of the work you produce.
The last thing you would expect would be the people tasked with hiring you making unwarranted, or even sexual, comments about you.
Unfortunately, that is allegedly what happened to at least six women who applied for jobs at Singapore-based company ETHOZ Group.
Screenshots show email exchanges about women's appearance, sex
Screenshots of emails allegedly between male employees of Singapore company ETHOZ Group showed them commenting on the physical appearances of female job applicants and even making sexually suggestive remarks about some of them.
ETHOZ Group is an "integrated automotive and financing solutions" company.
Screenshots of the emails, with the names of the men redacted, were posted online by Wake Up Singapore on Feb. 7.
Wake Up Singapore also provided Mothership with uncensored copies of the screenshots.
The employees discussed women who had applied to some of ETHOZ Group's job openings, but the conversations shown in the email screenshots did not centre on their professional qualifications.
Comments on physical appearance
Several emails included attachments of the applicants' photos and comments on their looks, both in positive and negative ways:
Censored photo via Wake Up Singapore. Faces have been further censored to protect the women's identities.
Censored photo via Wake Up Singapore. Faces have been further censored to protect the women's identities.
In Chinese slang, "wearing a green hat" alludes to cheating. Censored photo via Wake Up Singapore. Faces have been further censored to protect the women's identities.
Censored photo via Wake Up Singapore. Faces have been further censored to protect the women's identities.
In another email, one employee likened the applicant whose photo was attached to a "massage girl".
Censored photo via Wake Up Singapore. Faces have been further censored to protect the women's identities.
Sexual comments
The screenshots also showed several employees making comments alluding to having sex with the applicants.
In another email exchange, Man C suggested that one applicant could be considered for the role of Fleet Admin rather than Workshop Admin.
However, that wasn't all he had to say. He followed up that email with another note:
"If not, [Man B] can consider to bring her (potential gf) home for his private use."
Censored photo via Wake Up Singapore.
Another screenshot showed Man A sending an email to Man C in which he said that they could try finding a Workshop Admin who is young, so that when the mechanics see her, they can have "more energy [and] power... can work faster".
To that, Man C replied that "young and pretty one" is "good", and added that he would "bring her home for personal used (sic) soon to generate my energy, and I will show her my long lasting energy... lol".
Censored photo via Wake Up Singapore.
ETHOZ "take[s] the issue very seriously"
Responding to Mothership's queries on the matter, ETHOZ Group's human resources manager Alvin Tham said: "The screen captures in question appear to have been taken by ex-employees who used to work in our vehicle repair workshops."
He added:
"We take the issue very seriously and will not condone such behaviour in our workplace. We intend to undertake a full investigation and take such disciplinary action as may be appropriate."
In response to follow-up queries to confirm whether the individuals whose names were shown in the screenshots are indeed employees of ETHOZ Group, and if they are still currently employed at the company, Tham has not yet replied, and we will update this article when we receive a reply.
A Tripartite Alliance for Fair and Progressive Employment Practices (TAFEP) spokesperson told Mothership that TAFEP has not received any complaints against ETHOZ Group.
"Nevertheless, TAFEP will investigate and require the company to give a full account of its practices.”
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Top photos courtesy of Wake Up Singapore.